Student gunman wounds classmate in Colo. school

Student gunman wounds classmate in Colo. school

1of3Students evacuating Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colo., are patted down as others wait with their hands up. Authorities later concluded that the gunman had acted alone.Photo: KDVR-TV / Associated Press

2of3Students comfort each other outside of Arapahoe High School after the shooting. Several other Denver-area school districts went into lockdown as reports of the shooting spread.Photo: Ed Andrieski / Associated Press

3of3Students comfort each other outside of Arapahoe High School after a shooting on the campus in Centennial, Colo., on Friday, Dec. 13, 2013. Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson said Friday that the shooter, who died, was a student at the high school. He said another student was wounded when he confronted the armed student and was shot. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)Photo: Associated Press

CENTENNIAL, Colo. — A student who may have had a grudge against a teacher opened fire Friday with a shotgun at a suburban Denver high school, seriously wounding a fellow student before killing himself.

The scene unfolded on the eve of the Newtown, Conn., massacre anniversary, a somber reminder of the ever-present potential for violence in the nation's schools.

The gunman, identified late Friday as Karl Halverson Pierson, 18, made no attempt to hide the weapon when he entered Arapahoe High School and started asking for a teacher by name, Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson said.

Students alerted the targeted teacher, who quickly left the building “in an effort to try to encourage the shooter to also leave the school,” the sheriff said. “That was a very wise tactical decision.”

The wounded girl, 15, underwent surgery and was in critical condition. Another girl was taken to the hospital with reported minor gunshot wounds, but the sheriff later said she was covered in blood from the other student and wasn't injured.

Jessica Girard was in math class when she heard three shots.

“Then there was a bunch of yelling, and then I think one of the people who had been shot was yelling in the hallway, 'Make it stop!'” she said.

Two suspected Molotov cocktails were found inside the school, the sheriff said. Robinson said one had been lit and thrown, but no one was injured.

The school was swiftly locked down. Within 20 minutes of the first report of a gunman, officers found Pierson's body inside the school, Robinson said.

The practice of sending law enforcement directly into an active shooting, as was done Friday, was a tactic that developed in response to the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, just a few miles west of Arapahoe High School.

Tracy Monroe was standing outside the school on Friday looking at her phone, reading text messages from her 15-year-old daughter inside.

Monroe said she got the first text from her daughter, sophomore Jade Stanton, at 12:41 p.m. The text read, “There's sirens. It's real. I love you.”

A few minutes later, Jade texted “shots were fired in our school.” Monroe rushed to the school and was relieved when Jade texted that she was safe.

Monroe, whose stepsiblings attended Columbine, was family friends with Dave Sanders, the teacher who died there along with 12 students and the two gunmen.